Schrödinger’s Rat in Review – Puzzling Periodical Table Fun

I have definitely noticed an increase in puzzles over the last couple months. The latest one to cross my eyes snuck into the app store without me knowing it last month. This game, Schrödinger’s Rat, from devs South Peak and FORMation named is the latest to pique my interest.

Meant as a tribute to the popular Schrodingers Cat experiment, Schrodingers Rat is a puzzle game thats aim is to introduce the concepts of The Periodic Table of Elements as a forum for exploring atomic science. Although that sentence itself will be lost on some people the long and short of it is this: Schrodingers Rat makes science fun. Where else will you learn all 117 Periodic Elements because you wanted to? (not talking to you nerds!). The premise is that you are saving/reanimating all the rats that gave their lives to science. I had no idea what I was getting into.

On first launch this app looks great. I’m always a fan of clean designs and this app definitely has it. The appearance however is deceiving and a bit scary at first. Your main screen shows you a periodic element and then some arrows to go to various menus. The scariest of which was Lab. At first, Lab was quite a confusingly intimidating unknown. A quick hop to the help/handbook cured all that for me, and to save yourself I would recommend on first launch to tap the help in the bottom center first.

Menus aside, the game part of the app is very clean and easy to understand. You are maneuvering a puzzle which takes up most of the screen with your entry/exit points on the side. Thanks to the pop up menus at the beginning of every level you’ll always have a refresher of what to do/touch/not touch.

Although I said the app looked confusing at first once you read what does what, you’ll find yourself tapping through menus with ease. Each of the buttons performs a specific task and is for the most part labelled in an obvious manner. A few notable items though are definitely the “Radio” which allows either in game music or imported ipod.app playlists, “Collegues” where you’ll find your Twitter/Facebook integration, and “Catalog” which is where you can buy upgrades and additional levels. At the bottom of the lab you’ll see the tally of total rats saved globally as well as locally. To view the leader boards just tap the scores.

Schrödinger’s Rat is both simple and incredibly frustrating at times. You move your ball through the maze using the built in accelerometer. That means that every little move you make affects the game, which also means more chances for you to make a mistake which leads to frustration (the good kind though, nobody wants a game thats too easy right?).

In game you need to avoid various items, all the while collecting other ones to either aid in your completion or add time to the clock. These items as well as instructions pop up at the beginning of each round (but can be turned off if you like). Another game aid is the system of Merits. You earn these by completing entire blocks or types of elements. These merits can give you a hand, some extra lives or just a higher score.

I have to say I am quite surprised by this title. At first I thought it would be some confusing jumble of science and nerd fare that I might not get. Instead, I’ve been treated to fun way of both passing the time as well as learning the names of elements that I had never heard of before today. I would recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of puzzles, period. It’s fun, simple to understand (after a hop through the help manual) and crazy hard to master. As the folks at SouthPeak and FORMation put it themselves. It’s the quantum maze experiment with a heart of Au.